The Journey!
So all of you must have a cell phone. In fact, some of you may be reading this on your mobile phone itself (but I hope not while walking or driving….*who reads while driving!*…I don’t know, be safe). I am sure that all of us at some time might have wondered as to how a small device in your hand came into existence (never wondered? It’s okay. Maybe I’ll make you).
Although there were many instances of claiming, attempting, or using a wireless radio network call for communication in history (dating as far as the early 20th century), they can`t possibly be called mobile as they were hardly portable and poor in range (ok, technically they can be, but what’s the point!).
What I am focusing on is the growth of modern mobile phone which we can trace back to 1973 (that`s not very far back, but you know ‘The Exorcist’ was released in the same year and two years after that, ‘Sholey,’ just saying) it all started when Martin Cooper, an engineer at Motorola, (also called the father of cell phones) developed a handheld device and supposedly called his rival company (like a superhero who addresses his villains or Liam Neeson in ‘Taken’…just kidding).
Although a marvel of innovation, this device was heavy and big (practically like a brick) and took very long to get charged while giving very little talk time (still cannot be blamed). In 1983, a more commercial version was released by them called Motorola DynaTAC 8000x (sounds more like a robot’s name, doesn’t it?). Initially, the network was not much expanded, and there was limited usage among common citizens. As the years passed, more and more companies evolved to achieve supremacy in this industry. Companies like Nokia, Sony, Blackberry, Samsung, and Siemens, along with Motorola and many others, started a Race of the Devices.
Nokia turned out to be a smart and major player with its series of handsets starting from basic analog ones like Nokia Cityman1320 to Nokia 101, to GSM ones like Nokia 1011, 8210, 6110, 5110, and the very popular 3310, and (the practically invincible one) 1100 which came out in 2003.
Sony (or Ericsson or Sony Ericsson) was also trying hard to be recognized, and it did but only at a later time. In the 1990s, its notable models included GH172, GF768, T28, and A1018 (*these are cell phone models?* Yeah, I know… it’s ok nobody knows about them…anyway).
Motorola was also there in the game with its different models, especially StarTac (apparently inspired by StarTrek!!) series, including 85, 70, lite, 110, Slimlite, etc.
In a similar timeline, Blackberry launched qwerty side slide phones, which attracted people. Although it had some noticeable models like S300, SGH-T100, and SPH-M100 with unique qualities, Samsung struggled to make its presence. However, the first touchscreen phone was evolved in 1992 (*seriously?* Yes!) by IBM and was called IBM Simon Personal Communicator (it was supposedly also the world`s first smartphone!). LG Chocolate KG800 was also one such better-looking phone and then came the ‘iPhone’ in 2007.
The list can go on and on with other companies, too but let’s stop here and go to the days of future past (or, let’s say, to the late 2000s to present). Please understand that it is impossible to summarize all the phones with some special quality (not that you would want to read about all of them anyway).
Now as we see it, today’s phones (counting from a few years back, because you know the speed of development is a competitor to speed of light…okay, maybe not) are very fast, very smooth, very light, very slim, very efficient, very (umm forget it, you get the point) to make a long story short, let’s take for comparison purposes, my laptop (*hey aren’t we talking about mobiles* please let me make my point) when bought a few years back, had around 3 GB of Ram, a dual-core 1.2 GHz processor and cost me around 40k (believe me, it was still reasonable).
Today we have nuclear machines like Oneplus 2 (octa-core 1.8 GHz, 4GB Ram, full HD gorilla glass, 13 MP camera, etc.) Xiaomi Mi4 (quad-core 2.5 GHz, 3 GB Ram, full HD, 13 MP camera, etc.), Meizu MX5 (octa-core 2.2 GHz, 3 GB Ram, full HD, 20.7 MP camera, etc.), and many more, which are available in only half the price. Now let me be clear, I am not trying to do marketing or publicity for these brands, but these and various other such phones are serious performance packed devices that deliver what they promise, sometimes even more (oh, and if you don’t care about the features, performance or efficiency and want a supermodel looking phone, its completely fine, just that I’ll not be able to discuss those).
So here we are, after 4 decade-long progress, there are still a lot more promising things in store to come next; what do you think the future in the next 4 decades (of cellphones, of course) could be like?
Well, we can’t say for sure, but it would definitely be one among what people act upon and not just think. So people, act now!